Sightless
by Neko Kuroban
Summary: When the tempest of tragedy tears through your life, it is simple to accept that there are things that cannot be. Thalia Grace just keeps chasing the storm. AU. Thalia/Luke. Percy/Annabeth. Replaces TLO.
1. I: At Tara in This Midnight Hour

**Author's Notes (Neko Kuroban):** Neko here! _Sightless_ is a collaboration between Sister Grimm (sistergrimm2) and myself. Originally intended to be a one-shot, it blossomed into a fan novel. Mostly plotted before the release of the final book in the series, it takes the place of _The Last Olympian_ with a number of significant changes. Enjoy!

**Author's Notes (Sister Grimm)**: I want to note that I could not be more pleased to write this fanfiction with my best friend. _Sightless_ has become so much more than we ever dreamed, and we really hope you all like it. Please review!

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**Sightless by Neko Kuroban and Sister Grimm Erin **

**Part One: **

**Walk this World **

**Chapter I: **

**At Tara In This Midnight Hour**

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_When principles that run against your deepest convictions begin to win the day, then battle is your calling, and peace has become sin. You must, at the price of dearest peace, lay your convictions bare before friend and enemy with all the fire of your faith.  
_

* * *

"Thalia?"

It was the first time the girl laying on the low cot had recognized her in hours. The hour was long past midnight, and, for Thalia, the afternoon and evening had crawled past with excruciating sloth.

Abigail had spent the bulk of the time in a delirium, convulsing and soaked with sweat, as the poison worked its way through her body. Had the fever broken? Her breathing was sharper, but her eyes were no longer dilated and unfocused.

How was Thalia to feel about this sudden development? Just a few minutes before, the young Hunter had been babbling in her native tongue. Thalia had not been able to comprehend any of the alien language, but she had recognized that the soft, flowing stream of words formed prayers. (She could not explain quite _how_ she knew this, at least not beyond some inherent, intrinsic understanding.) At the moment, however, Abigail seemed to be calm and lucid, once again a part of the real world.

Was it a sign that the worst was over? Would her exhausted body finally begin to fight the poison working its way through her system? Or—perish the thought—was this sudden tranquility only a brief reprieve on her way to death?

Thalia had spent the night burying herself in action. She had smeared wounds with salve once an hour. She replaced the blood-stained bandages with clean ones whenever blood seeped through. She had managed to staunch the bleeding with a tourniquet, but Abigail's coughing fits occasionally managed to reopen the wound in her side.

Prayer required a surrender to a higher power than one's self; it was simply _not_ something she did. Despite this, she lit sticks of incense, which she knew were part of Abigail's nightly ritual. The thick perfume of burning jasmine seemed to comfort the other girl, but, for her, it was merely a convenient way to disguise the smell of blood, sickness, and sweat that hung in the air.

She clasped Abigail's limp right hand within both of her smaller ones. The Hunter's long fingers reminded Thalia of nothing so much as the bones in a bird's wing: light and thin, but so _very_ easily broken. "How are you feeling?"

Abigail tried to smile up at her, but the motion somehow came out wrong. Rather than being the reassuring gesture she had intended it to be, it only seemed to be a cause for alarm.

It had been only half a day since the poisonous arrow had pierced her flesh, but already it had taken its toll. A mortal would have died by now, but Abigail seemed...reduced. Her bronze complexion appeared faded and sallow while her long hair, once lustrous, fell down her back, tangled and matted. More brown than green, her formerly bright hazel eyes were dim.

Her sharp tongue remained unaffected. "You can't imagine how much fun I'm having." A rueful chuckle accompanied the words. It possessed a rasping quality that sickened Thalia and quickly turned into a hacking cough.

Dropping Abigail's hands immediately, Thalia slipped one thin arm behind the girl's bare shoulders and helped her sit up. The light quilt fell away from Abigail's chest, pooling at her waist. She was nude except for the white bandages wrapped around her abdomen. Abigail was a hand's length taller than Thalia, but she seemed smaller with her shoulders hunched and her head turned down. She had been either twelve or thirteen—even she did not know—when she had made the sacred vow that bound her to Artemis's service.

That had been more than two hundred years ago.

Two centuries paled in contrast to the thousands of years Artemis, ancient yet forever young, had seen, but Thalia could not imagine carrying the weight of so much time. She often scrutinized her companions, searching for signs of age or world-weariness. It was often contradictory. Danica had been persecuted for her faith in Emperor Nero's Rome, but she seemed less jaded than Jasmine, who had grown up in Detroit in the 1960s. Camille could be flighty and foolish, a remnant from her time in the Court of Versailles; these qualities would likely never be lost.

In Abigail, Thalia sometimes imagined that she could see the wisdom and burden of her years shining out of those cat-like hazel eyes. Now, however, the girl before her looked frightened and resigned in equal parts, at once lackluster and child-like. Did that expression—that combination of cynicism and innocence—ever appear on her own face?

The fit finally subsided, and Abigail dared to speak. "Thank you," she whispered, rough and hoarse.

Thalia tried to summon a smile. "No problem."

"I need..." She trailed off, but the corners of her eyes compressed as if in pain. The light in the tent was very faint, but Thalia found herself wondering whether it was too intense. Could the poison (and the fever it brought) heighten Abigail's sensitivity? "Dizzy," she admitted.

"Here." Thalia pulled her bag into her lap, rifling through. She removed the cap on a fresh bottle of water and held the drink out. There was a half-hearted proftest from the other Hunter, but Thalia overruled her. "Drink," she instructed firmly, her tone leaving no room for protest. "You're dehydrated. This will help."

Abigail relented with a weak nod. Thalia brought the bottle to her lips, lifting it just enough to permit a narrow trickle to enter her mouth. Abigail winced as she swallowed the first sip, but she obligingly took two more mouthfuls before pulling her head away.

"Good job."

Thalia was not the type to lavish praise. It was a reward she did not believe in giving unless earned and, even then, her compliments were usually brusque and minimal. However, it was difficult for Abigail to accept help, and that was a concept she was more than familiar with. The clean white bandages around Abigail's abdomen darkened, and Thalia averted her gaze.

"Thank you."

Was this repetition only respect or was it an actual lapse in memory? Once again, Thalia took the other girl's hand, this time lacing her small, fine-boned fingers through Abigail's. "You already said that," she reminded.

The majority of communication was non-verbal, and Thalia had always held herself with confidence. Even when she kept her eyes averted and her body language closed, she was told that she projected an aura of self-possession. Her rank as lieutenant had taught her to be even more cautious of subtle inflections. She knew when to keep her face carefully blank, when to turn a stern glare upon one of her subordinates, when to let her voice become harsh. At the moment, she kept her tone light and gentle—the way she would speak to a very young child, the same tenderness she had once reserved solely for addressing Annabeth.

"I know I did."

A burden lifted from Thalia's shoulders. It was not the words so much as it was the calm maturity in Abigail's voice, not the sentiment so much as the way she did not falter when she spoke.

_Maybe we're going to be all right_, she allowed herself the luxury of thinking.

"I just thought that I ought to say it again," Abigail clarified as she tried to lay back down. Without comment, Thalia assisted her. "For...for everything." She hesitated. "For staying. For holding my hand while I die. There are not many people who would be willing to do that."

_It is my duty_, Thalia wanted to say. Somehow, though, she understood that obligation and responsibility was not what was needed here.

"Don't talk like that, Abi." She reached out to brush a wisp of sweat-soaked hair off of Abigail's face. Her skin was no long flushed with fever; it felt cool and damp under Thalia's touch. "You're going to be fine."

_I hope_, she added to herself.

Abigail's heavy eyelids fell closed—as if keeping her eyes opfen demanded too much of an effort. "Do not argue with Death, Thalia. My papa taught me that. Denial, bargaining, anger... all that does is encourage Death. It only tells Him that here is someone who will be missed. That is what Death wants. If my name is in His books, my name is in His books."

Thalia tightened her grip on the other Hunter's hand once more. Careful as she was, there was very little force behind the gesture, but it was ostensibly a defiant one, a childish act of protest.

"_Don't_," she repeated. She was firm yet gentle, the voice used by an adult trying to get a child to heed instructions. "Artemis will return soon, I promise. Gemma and Hope went to meet her; I'm sure they're already on their way back."

Although there had been no word from the pair, nothing to indicate either success or failure, some part of her was convinced that she could sense their party returning. Even if it was an illusion brought on by exhaustion, the reassurance was nothing less than what Zoë would have done in her place.

"I managed to stop the bleeding, but I'm hoping that Artemis can stop the poison. By sunrise, tonight will seem like nothing more than a nightmare."

Abigail reached out with trembling fingertips. Almost too soft to register, her touch on Thalia's face was as cold as ice, even though the lit brazier kept the room uncomfortably warm. She ran her fingers down Thalia's warm cheek, the caress no stronger than a butterfly's fluttering wing.

_This isn't a good sign_, Thalia recognized. Cold extremities indicated that Abigail's heart was no longer sending blood to her feet and hands as her body tried to conserve its own energy.

"Thalia, Thalia, Thalia." Her girlish voice was as chiding as a schoolteacher's. "Naïveté is cute, but it doesn't work for you. You and I both know that's not going to happen."

Murmured conversation drifted from just beyond the tent's entrance.

Thalia recognized the rolling timbre of Phoebe's alto. It was accompanied by Mary's high, childlike voice, every syllable of which was characterized by a British accent. (It had once been the Queen's English but had faded to something resembling Received Pronunciation, and Thalia privately suspected that half of it was affected. Centuries after her actual birth, sheer determination was the only reason Mary had kept the accent of her homeland from being replaced with an American inflection.)

The actual words they exchanged were impossible to decipher. Demigods possessed much sharper senses than ordinary mortals, but the privacy and seclusion provided by the enchanted silver silk tents worked both ways.

Thalia looked down at Abigail. "Do you want to see them?" Once the other girl had consented, she twisted around to glance at the entrance over her shoulder, calling, "You can come in!"

Phoebe crossed the threshold. Thalia's second-in-command looked exhausted in a way that was impossible to hide. The older girl still wore the battle-ruined attire she had worn earlier, her shoulder-length hair skinned away from her face into a high ponytail. A streak of dirt ran along the side of her face. Phoebe had been a sixteen-year-old colonist when she had first encountered the goddess to whom they had sworn eternity to. In this moment, she looked so much older and so much younger.

Thalia knew she was as tired as she looked. Together, they had kept watch the night before, a task they usually did in pairs. Four hour shifts were typical, but Thalia and Phoebe's had stretched into six hours, fueled by tension and nerves. Jasmine and Meiran had finally relieved them of their post at daybreak, but Thalia had not slept much afterwards—and she suspected that Phoebe had not either. The day had been battle after battle until Abigail had been wounded, which had forced them to stop and to make camp when the sun was still at its highest point.

"You look like hell warmed over," Thalia said by way of greeting.

Her second-in-command smiled as if this flippant comment amused her. "No more than you do."

The raven-haired girl looked down at her own ruined clothing and shrugged, her narrow shoulders rising and falling. "I reject your reality and substitute my own," she replied with a lilting, singsong intonation that made her voice sound much more carefree than she actually felt. She removed her hand from Abigail's. "What s up?" She asked as she got to her feet.

Phoebe approached her, reluctance evident in every step she took. "Mary is distraught and wants to see Abigail," Phoebe explained quietly, her dark eyes cutting over to Abigail. "I think it might be the only thing that could calm her down. Is this a bad idea?"

Phoebe laid her hand on Thalia's shoulder, which she shrugged off with as much dignity as she could muster. She leaned to smooth the rumpled sheets and summer-weight blanket, wanting to give herself something to do as well as to make it look as if she had simply moved away rather than flinched.

Physical contact was not necessarily something she shied away from, but she preferred to be the giver of affection rather than its recipient. It was easier to accept it if it was from someone whom she knew and cared for, but she liked to be the one to initiate contact. She supposed small gestures were included in this: even Phoebe's touch on her shoulder made her wonder about the tall brunette's motives.

She liked Phoebe, but her every instinct balked at the idea of _trusting_ her—and that made her feel like she was somehow at fault.

She looked up and forced a small, apologetic smile as an offering. "I'm no medic, but I think it should be fine if Mary comes in for a few minutes. Abi's lucid." _If resigned to the idea of dying_, Thalia thought grimly, _so she probably won't make for the best company_. It was solely for Phoebe's benefit that she added, "I'm hoping this means that the worst is over." She turned away to address Abigail. "What d'you think? Feeling up to it?"

A feeble nod. The gesture made it appear as if Abigail's head were weighted were lead, her eyelids lowering halfway, and the effect of it was disconcerting, reminding Thalia of nothing so much as a ball-jointed doll. _One of those creepy ones that close their eyes when you tilt their heads_, she decided.

"I want to see Mary," Abigail said.

"Are you sure?"

"I want..." Abigail broke off suddenly, and whatever desire she harbored was lost in the outbreak of coughing that followed. Movements almost too swift to register, Thalia seized the water bottle again. She helped the other girl to sit up and to drink once more. "I want to see Mary," Abigail repeated when her fit had passed, no less suddenly than it had begun. "There's something important I need to tell her."

Off Thalia's look, Phoebe sighed and went to the entrance of the tent to summon Mary. She fell silent as a blur of motion (chin-length corkscrew curls the color of ginger; rosy cheeks; skinny, shapeless body, eternally that of an eleven-year-old; usually restrained demeanor replaced by a frenzied intensity) surged past her.

Mary made straight for the cot, ignoring Thalia entirely in her haste to throw her arms around Abigail's waist. She immediately buried her cheek in the quilt that covered her friend's uninjured side.

Thalia stole a sidelong glance at her and noted with a strange, scientific detachment that Mary's brown eyes were puffy and red-rimmed. As she watched, tears began to well there. Visible evidence of unhappiness discomforted Thalia more than anything, but she so rarely succumbed to tears (in herself, such an action was only a weakness) that she found it strangely compelling when she saw others cry.

Mary had always seemed withdrawn and reserved, but her emotions flowed swift and fast now, a river rushing as it coursed around a bend. It was as if she was afraid that she would not have enough time to unburden herself.

"Oh, Abi!" The girl's soprano never failed to remind Thalia of a mockingbird, so small and so high. Wavering as it struggled to hold the weight of her sorrow, the resemblance seemed even greater. "I'm so, so, so sorry! It was my arrow. The tip was poisoned. You know that, don t you? I couldn't see, but I was so worried that you would be hurt; I was just trying to help you—I just care for you so greatly, and..." She nearly choked on the force of the sob that welled up from within her, her body visibly shuddering at its might. "Could you possibly ever, _ever_ be able to forgive me?"

It was a long moment before Abigail spoke, but, when she finally did, the words were quiet and contemplative. "There is nothing to forgive." She laid her hand atop her best friend's hair. "You are the sister of my soul. I love you without end."

The sentiment was enough to make the dam crumble and fall to pieces. Still hiding her face in the quilt, Mary began to weep in earnest as if this was a loss from which her heart could never begin to heal.

It was possible that this rent _was_ one that could never be mended.

Mary and Abigail had a strange, curious bond. They came from wildly different times and cultures. Mary hailed from England under Cromwell's oppressive regime in the name of morality. Meanwhile, Abigail had been born and lived in North America at the turn of the eighteenth century. Mary, a born follower, usually aligned her opinions to agree with Abigail's, but at heart their values differed. Despite this, they were more than the best of friends, even closer than sisters, often acting as if in sync with one another, even when separated by circumstances. The impression Thalia had gotten from the other Hunters indicated that the pair had been that way since their first meeting.

Thalia wondered what it would be like to lose someone you cared for like that—and she instantaneously regretted it.

She knew _exactly_ how it felt, and she sorely wished that she did not.

_The least I can do is give them some time alone_, she thought as she got to her feet. "You two have fifteen minutes," Thalia cautioned.

Neither responded to her or even broke their steady conversation, which they were conducting in the language Abigail had reverted to while hallucinating. In all honesty, Thalia had not expected any reply. Mary and Abigail were so caught up in one another that it was likely they had not even registered her words. Grabbing her jacket, an unlined black trench coat, she threw it on over her shoulders and reached for her messenger bag.

She sauntered to Phoebe, who was watching the two girls, her usual thousand-yard stare much softer. Her face was carefully schooled so as not to betray her emotions, but it was easy to see through the mask if one knew how to look. To get her attention—and to perhaps atone for rejecting her touch earlier—Thalia reached out to put her hand on her second-in-command's upper arm.

"I think we should give them some privacy."

Phoebe raised her eyebrows and looked down at her. "Why?"

Through the fabric of a cotton sleeve long worn thin, Thalia could feel the definition of Phoebe's biceps and triceps. The other girl was by no means bulky, but her height and her tanned, toned frame made her appear much more substantial and robust than Thalia herself did. Slowly, she slid her hand down Phoebe's arm until the fabric of her sleeve ended and warm, vital flesh was beneath Thalia's palm.

"This might be the last chance they ever get to talk," she said quietly. "They _need_ this." Without leaving time to respond, Thalia threaded her arm through Phoebe's elbow and met her gaze. Her second-in-command was left with little choice in the matter. "Come on."

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**Author's Notes (Neko Kuroban)**: Please leave feedback! Replies are provided to every review — and I always try to return the favor by leaving at least a few reviews for any author who takes the time to provide any sort of comment.

The next installment (Part II - "Like a Night Without Starlight") should be up shortly. Thank you for reading!


	2. II: Like a Night Without Starlight

**Sightless by Neko Kuroban and Sister Grimm Erin**

**Part One: **

**Walk This World**

**Chapter II: **

**Like a Night Without Starlight**

* * *

_So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is happier — they who have braved the storm and lived or they who have merely existed? _

* * *

A fine curtain of mist enshrouded her the instant Thalia stepped out of the tent. The clearing where the Hunters of Artemis had made camp was not far from the river, and she could hear it laughing and singing in the distance.

Heavier rain was approaching. It would fall hard and fast, causing the water to swell but not flood. The rain would find ditches and networks to run along the side of the mountain. It had been a dry summer, and it was likely that the squall would be welcomed by the farms in the mountain's valley.

The fresh air felt like an unexpected gift. (Had it only been half a day since Abigail was wounded by Mary's stray arrow? It felt as if a lifetime had passed.) Hoping to sweat out the fever the poison brought, she had kept the tent uncomfortably hot. She had lit and filled the enchanted brazier, which produced heat and light but not smoke. Abigail had made a little whining noise when she had tried to use an electric lamp to see by, so Thalia had been forced to rely on a gas lantern that made the shadows seem darker.

Incense had perfumed the air so thickly that, with her heightened senses, it was easy to imagine she could _taste_ it. It had threatened to make her gag until she adjusted, its potency had not been enough to disguise the nauseating stench of blood, sweat, and sickness.

In stark contrast, the surrounding forest smelled clean and invigorating. Its fragrance was the tangle of scents she would forever associate with new life: pine, rain, moss, the dry-damp richness of mast in the underbrush, and the strange, heady aroma that could only be described as the scent of August.

Unbidden, a vision of Los Angeles rose in her mind. In August, the California air thickened and grew sultry. The sun rose blood-orange, crawling higher and higher until the sprawling metropolis shimmered crimson in the morning light. Smog choked the San Fernando Valley and left the Basin's poorer residential communities gasping for air, but a combination of wind and altitude kept it from ever reaching the Platinum Triangle neighborhoods that served as fortresses for the wealthy.

A cool wind teased her, dispelling that line of thought, and Thalia turned her face to the rain as if to greet it.

Phoebe broke the spell. For Phoebe, the rain was an inconvenience, something that irritated her—and that was reflected in the taller girl's voice as much as it was in the question that followed. "Can't you do something about this?"

Thalia exhaled audibly. It was not _quite_ a sigh. "Of course."

The cool tendril of air that had swept past returned at her bidding. Doubling back, it wrapped around Thalia and entwined itself around her in a protective embrace. Her hair fluttered around her face and shoulders, and her eyes closed. Her hands tightened at her sides. After a moment, she uncurled her slim, fine fingers—and then clenched them into fists once more, feeling her fingernails press into her palms.

She wanted nothing more than to summon a thunderstorm.

She longed to submit to the power that burned hot and bright within her. Surrender would permit her to revel in it rather than fear to it. She could lose herself and his identity, severing ties, obligations, and responsibilities within the driving rain and howling wind. Problems of this world would fade in comparison to jagged slashes of white-hot heat that tore apart the heavens and bathed the world in ultraviolet light. She required no adulation.

She had never needed—or wanted—to be a hero.

_This_ was her glory, and she regarded it with as much awe as fear.

She refused to yield to her desire. She did as Phoebe had requested—no more, no less. Instead of giving in to the storm restrained inside her, she imagined gathering the loose, frayed edges of herself and tucking them away. She concentrated on pushing the rain toward the community in the valley that so needed it.

The process demanded no effort from her. A small part of her wished that it would rebel and break away. Perhaps then she would have the chance to exercise her power and strengthen her control.

It obeyed her without question.

The serenity that descended upon her outstripped any kind of meditation. For an instant, she was one with everything, but the sensation was only brief. The enlightenment she achieved, the understandings and realizations she gained, always fled the instant she was done, leaving her with empty hands. Already, she could feel herself falling back into the shackles of her physical form.

How could anyone live with the restraints bodies—no more than decanters for the soul!—provided and no taste of freedom?

She was acutely aware of everything when she returned to her body. Under ordinary circumstances, her senses were perhaps a hundred percent improvement over a mortal's. When she first slipped back into her own skin, her perception seemed to have increased a thousand-fold.

Anyone else might have found the experience fascinating, but it made her feel..._prickly_ was the only word she could think of to describe it. The structure of everything she saw was visible to the naked eye, and frequencies sounded as if they were at the level of normal conversation. Like this, the universe seemed far too demanding. The modern world was a loud, chaotic place—and it never _shut up_.

Her sense of touch was hypersensitive, and even the mildest sensation was something to loathe. As cool as the evening was, the night bore heavily upon her. The fabric of the clothes she wore against her skin seemed to be a burden. All of the things she carried! Boots, socks, underwear, jeans, studded belt, bra, camisole, shirt, unlined trench coat, the circlet that had once been Zoë's. She carried knives: one in her shoe, one at her ankle, one in her belt. The metal bracelet on her wrist contained her shield, and her spear was concealed in what appeared to be a Mace canister in her jacket pocket. Even after adopting a bow and arrows, she still believed her weapons to be her life, but they seemed an unnecessary strain.

And the _noise_! Surely, she would go deaf—or mad—at this rate. Even as the over-stimulation began to fade, she had to focus on the sounds nearest to her to keep from hearing the roar of the hushed forest. Was the beat of her heart _always_ so annoying, so much like a frightened rabbit? Six feet away, Phoebe's heart produced a rhythm that was pure clockwork. How did she get to do that? Was it natural or a learned skill?

The feeling ebbed, and she was herself once more—but the period of waiting for her body to reorient itself had been worth it. Her blood was a live wire, and any weariness had been burned away.

The sensation would not last. It was a gift which with she was presented time and time again, only to discover that it had been merely on loan. She would crash in a few hours' time, but for the moment she felt as if she could take on the world. She sought the rush of adrenalin often, but compared to this even the best endorphin high seemed a crude mimicry.

Her limbs did not immediately respond to her commands. Years ago, she had been cautioned that she could lose the ties that held her to her earthly body when she abandoned it, and the idea of endless, boundless serenity had appealed to her more than it discouraged her. Now, however, she uncurled her hands finger by finger, joint by joint, and then threw out her arms, holding herself as if crucified. She held the position, counting silently to herself, before lifting her thin arms over her head. She rose up on the tips of her toes, stretching her entire body with cat-like grace.

"It's so strange whenever you do that," she heard Phoebe remark beside her. This her ears perceived as they normally would, she realized. She could no longer hear the steady, drum-like hammer of her companion's heartbeat or the erratic rhythm of her own.

She released a breath she had not realized she was holding.

Opening her eyes, she found herself staring up at a sky littered with stars. The trees encircling the camp seemed to at once cradle it and keep a respectful distance. Silver moonlight bathed the clearing, making the hard-packed dirt appear darker and lending the leaves that rustled in the wind a pearl-colored hue.

When she glanced over, Phoebe was looking at her expectantly. Thalia tried to remember what she had said, but she had been listening to how Phoebe had spoken rather than to the words themselves.

"Sorry. What?"

"It is strange to see you do that—frightening, almost."

"Really."

It was not a question. The sentiment was nothing new. Thalia could count on one hand the number of people who had seen her manipulate the elements and had recognized that it was her bidding. If she counted only the people who saw her actually leave her body to do so, she would have several fingers left over.

Phoebe did not pick up on her clinical tone. "You looked as if—" Always calm and composed, Phoebe never tripped over her words. It was rare that she was at a loss, but here she faltered. "You looked as if you were dead."

Thalia only shrugged. It was crude, but it was the simplest method of deflecting conversations she did not want to be drawn into. Thalia considered Phoebe something along the lines of a friend as well as an ally, but she was forced to admit that she did not particularly care for—or even _like_—the other girl. Certainly not enough to share moments such as this.

Her assessment was correct, however.

Luke's mind had worked in the same swift, analytical fashion that Thalia's did. They may have been sheltered and naïve in the ways of the world but they were experienced in the pain that accompanied personal tragedy. They had known nothing about survival beyond what they had been forced by need and necessity to learn, but they managed to take care of themselves together. If they had been starving for affection and stability, in those days they had been hungrier still for the sustenance provided by answers—about the world beyond them as much about the world that existed within them.

The tests they subjected themselves and their abilities to had seemed like challenges motivated by a detached, scientific sense of curiosity. Hindsight let Thalia recognize them for exactly what they were: stupid dares as part of an extended game of chicken played by a pair of children. A pair of children, she knew now, who might have been intelligent (although certainly not wise) beyond their years and forced to grow up young...but who were nothing resembling the adults they so ardently believed themselves to be.

Luke had only ever turned down two of her suggestions, and Thalia could only remember twice refusing him. It was possible that there had been more, but she does not remember any other instances where they ever denied one another anything—and, even looking back, she liked to think that there had been some kind of balance.

She was fearless, but he was even more daring and willing to try anything than she was—and she had taken advantage of this, exhilarated by the weight of the trust he placed in her hands. She got a thrill out of seeing how far she could make him go. _For her_, she did not let herself think now, but it was something that had privately delighted the girl she had once been. She was occasionally merciless in the challenges she threw his way, but he never turned her down.

When it came his turn, he was willing to push boundaries. Although Luke could be every bit as manipulative as he was clever, he never tried to beguile her (probably as much because she could see through the façade he wore in a way no one else ever had as much as out of care and regard for her), and he always dropped the subject if she displayed any misgivings.

She almost never did.

Thalia was one of nature's born daredevils; risks served only to excite her. She was aware of her own pride now, but all of those years ago she had been intoxicated by her own power and eager to test its limits. The fact that neither of them ever met confines only served as encouragement. (Also, she hated to admit to it, but the girl she had once been—the girl she loathed, the girl she pitied, the girl she regarded as a fool, the girl she envied, the girl she sometimes wished she could be—had been easily charmed by silver words and enticing lips turned up in a smirk, especially when coupled with sapphire eyes and that certain tilt of his head.)

She had wanted to practice exercising her powers to learn control, but it had taken him to convince her to agree to consciously and deliberately raise a storm. They had been in the middle of what they had both been raised to think of as _flyover country_, and it had not been difficult to find an abandoned field. She had taken off everything she wore that was made of metal, handing it to him piece by piece: her watch, her bracelet, and the silver chain she used to wear around her neck.

The undertaking had been an exercise in frustration until she was angry enough with herself to have it happen almost accidentally. It was nothing more than chance, but he had recorded everything that happened.

It had seemed to her that hours had passed, but he informed her that it had only been seconds. According to him, her heart slowed and stilled, her breathing all but stopped, and her core body temperature soared before plummeting. All returned to normal the second she once again entered her body.

The experiment had not been entirely successful: they had both been left with burns across the palms.

She remembered little of it beyond the vaguest of details. It was the first time she had experienced the hypersensitive state that followed, and she did recall that she had panicked, horrified that she was going mad.

She had grabbed him by the wrists. On some level, she must have been aware of what she was doing. While Luke tried to be so cocky and collected, she was probably the only person in the world who knew that the fastest way to make him loose all composure was to restrain his hands or arms. A struggle had followed, ending only with a flash of light and the stench of burning flesh.

Hers were superficial flesh wounds, but his hands had been burned to the muscle, probably even to the bone, and her jewelry had melted in his left palm. Her hands had healed by the following morning except for a faint pinkness. Within days it was as if his third degree burns had never happened. Neither had scarred; no lessons had been learned.

In truth, only a handful of minutes had passed between the wounds being inflicted and the time in which she offered to rip of the melted metal like she would a Band-Aid. Because he was Luke, he had let her, and they had both been surprised when the molten silver peeled off like wax to reveal skin that was raw but not damaged. Impossibly cool and easy to mold, the liquid metal had not behaved like it should have, and she had toyed with it for some time. When she absently placed a strip of it across her wrist, the two ends came together to meet with no sign of where they joined, with no end or beginning.

What occurred a few weeks later had been enough to make them stop tampering with things they did not understand. She had wanted to show him what it was to leave the body behind to see the possibility of a different kind of existence—and she had nearly killed them both in the attempt. She had been elated by the prospect of taking him with her, but no sooner had she begun the process that it was evident: something was incredibly wrong. She had stopped instantly, but, even then, they had been left weak and powerless for nearly a week.

"Thalia?"

Thalia snapped her gaze to look at her companion, who was sitting in the damp grass. Hands braced behind her, Phoebe leaned back onto her palms. Her long legs were stretched out before her.

_This is my life now_, Thalia reminded herself. _Those days are over. I have to make the best of this_.

"Are you all right?"

_I have to._

"Lost in thought, I guess," Thalia answered mildly as she joined the other girl. She kept her body language closed and her posture straight, sitting cross-legged with her hands folded in her lap. "I'm fine."

"Are you certain? For a moment, you looked so sad—but angry at the same time." Thalia did not notice Phoebe's features change, but her eyes softened. Something that might have been fondness entered her voice as she added, "The two _do_ sometimes go hand in hand, don't they?"

_Frequently_. "Did you hear from Gemma or Hope?"

If she was surprised or bothered by the abrupt change of subject, it did not show. "Not yet. The most we can do is pray to the gods that they and Artemis return soon."

_Pray to the gods? Yeah. Right. Like that ever achieves anything._ Thalia shook her head in a combination of disgust and annoyance. "Shit."

Phoebe's expression shifted, but the emotion behind it was impossible to place. Was she concerned? Upset? Thalia assumed that her swearing—a mild oath, by her own standards—had offended her.

"I wanted to go myself, but I felt like this was where I was supposed to be." She sighed and reached up to pinch the bridge of her nose. "Did you at least send the others away like I asked?"

"Mostly," Phoebe answered carefully.

"What does that mean?"

"Jasmine, Meiran, and Camille left when I suggested it. Some of the younger girls refused. Danica is praying in her tent, but it scared Leilani, so she went traipsing off to find everyone else."

"Latin prayers are terrifying, obviously," Thalia teased, but her heart was not in it. The words sounded hollow, even to herself. _Whatever_. She had tried for levity. "What about Dagger?" She knew the answer to her question the moment she asked. "She hasn't moved since we made camp, has she?"

Phoebe shifted, eyes fixed on her hands, and she seemed to compose herself before she spoke. "Death is not something Dagger understands, Thalia," she said with her eyes averted. "It is not part of her worldview. She does not believe it happens to us. She knew Bianca for only a few days. That loss never registered. You know that the reason she latched onto you so quickly was because Zoë died, do you not? She adores you because she views you as a replacement—some kind of compensation from the gods—for the loss of someone she idolized."

As if to counter her words, Phoebe once again placed her hand on Thalia's shoulder. The raven-haired girl silently counted to thirteen before she pulled away. Although blunt, there had been no outright malice in what Phoebe had said, and it was the truth behind her statement—an attitude that was shared with several others—that stung.

Thalia did not regret joining the Hunters. Joining their ranks had been something she had needed more than she ever would have believed on the eve of her sixteenth birthday. Finding somewhere she belonged had freed her from the fog of anger and misery that had shrouded her two years ago, and becoming lieutenant had helped her find her footing and rediscover her own confidence in a changed world.

_But still..._

Her patience was taxed by the relentless friction her mere presence seemed to generate.

Artemis regarded—even welcomed—Thalia as her sister, both biological and symbolic, and they shared a peculiar sort of understanding and closeness. This intimacy had led a number of the other girls to accept her, but it was her own personality and actions that had won her respect.

Jasmine was aloof and reserved when dealing with most people, but her ice seemed to thaw whenever she and Thalia spoke. Mei-Ran provided a consistent sparring partner. Abigail called Thalia her friend, and Mary, who embraced with a whole heart anyone Abigail cared for, did as well. As Phoebe had said, Dagger treated her with a combination of awe and adoration.

The others made for a different story entirely.

Phoebe herself vacillated between warmth and polite deference to Thalia's position, but Thalia believed she would have had every right to be bitter. If she had not been handed the rank of lieutenant the moment she made her vow, it would Phoebe holding the reins.

Danica maintained that the title should belong to Phoebe, an opinion she expressed frequently. So did Hope. Experience was an advantage in their eyes, and Phoebe had hundreds of years among their number compared to Thalia who had barely eighteen months' worth. With her matchstick tongue and her love for gossip, Camille had helped to fan these embers of dissent into flames.

Gemma believed Thalia to be at fault for the deaths of Zoë Nightshade and Bianca di Angelo. Thalia knew the truth, and she knew the girl was just looking for a scapegoat. Even so (and here was something she would never give voice to), the silent accusation hurt. Leilani—who loved Artemis, admired Thalia, respected Phoebe, and missed Zoë—was torn in loyalty.

_Something_, Thalia occasionally thought, _just has got to give_.

"Why did you ask me to send the others away?"

Thalia turned to face Phoebe. "Everyone else believes the poison came from the monster they were fighting, don't they?" She was satisfied to see the other girl nod. "Good. You and I are going to make sure it stays that way."

Brown eyes narrowed. "We do _not_ keep secrets, Thalia."

"And so letting everyone blame Mary is the way to go? It was a stray arrow; it was an accident. It's a tragedy, yeah. She's going to be grieving as much as anyone—_more_ than anyone. She'll hate herself. Look how torn up she is. Is it really worth letting her be judged and _defined_ by this for the next century?"

She watched as Phoebe pursed her lips.

The other girl was poised to say something damning, Thalia knew. However, she recognized that she needed to extract herself from the conversation before she risked saying something she would regret.

She stood. "I'm going to go check on Dagger. I'll be back in a few." She turned on her heel—and then spun around to add a parting remark, her bearing imperious and regal. "Don't take any further action without my permission."


	3. III: The Silence of Innocence

**Sightless by Neko Kuroban and Sister Grimm Erin **

**Part One: **

**Walk this World **

**Chapter III: **

**The Silence of Innocence**

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_The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time._

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Thalia was always surprised at how simple it was to entice Dagger to talk.

All of seven years old, Dagger was the youngest member of Artemis's entourage. She was a mortal capable of seeing through the Mist, but the things she had experienced had left her with grave eyes that seemed as if they could pierce through anything to see the truth. It was difficult to remember this when one looked at her. She appeared to be nothing more than a small Japanese girl, young with bangs straight across her forehead. She sat childishly on the edge of a rock, swinging her feet. She seemed vulnerable as if she needed nothing more than someone willing to protect her, but she possessed a remarkable shot alongside her tragic history.

However, she had been seven when she made her vow, and thus she would forever have the mentality of a seven-year-old child. There was no need to pry or to cajole her to speak. All that was required was a few leading questions from Thalia, and words would tumble from Dagger, her private emotions spilling free.

Was this freedom, this complete lack of self-consciousness, something unique to children? Had Annabeth been so free, so loving, so willing to share absolutely _anything_ at this age? Had she herself ever been like that? (Thalia dismissed that thought as soon as it formed. She knew it was an impossibility.)

"It's not fair, _sempai_," Dagger was saying now, an idea a sentiment she had already given voice to. She had bestowed the title upon Thalia soon after meeting her. In her native Japanese, she had explained, it was a term of honor reserved for one who was admired and considered a mentor.

After Phoebe's comment, as mild as it had been, Thalia found herself idly wondering whether the girl had once used it to address Zoë Nightshade as well.

"After tonight," Dagger continued, still idly kicking the air with her sneakers as if to punctuate every word. "Everything is going to change and nothing is ever supposed to change. Abi will never again be able to laugh or cry or fight or get angry or tell stories. It's just not _fair_," she repeated, childish and sullen.

Thalia could have told her a few swift facts about life being just, but she could not do that to her. She was not certain she would be able to witness the destruction of this particular child's innocence. "Nothing ever is," she countered.

"But why?" A whine crept up in her voice. "I just want to understand."

Dagger's dark eyes were damp, and her face was stricken, the contours forever round with youth.

Thalia met her gaze but found she could not hold it. At last, she managed to summon her voice. "I can't be the one to tell you that, Hotaru," she answered. It was rare that anyone ever used the girl's given name, but it had never before seemed so appropriate. "Honestly? I don't know myself."

* * *

**Author's Notes (Neko Kuroban): **_The next installment ("But That Was In Another Country") of Sightless should be online soon! As always, my co-writer and I are incredibly, incredibly grateful for any form of feedback. _

**A quick question for readers: Which day of the week is best to update _Sightless_?**


	4. IV: But That Was in Another Country

**The authors would like to acknowledge the following users who left reviews for _Sightless_: **Aish Sheva, Avenger of the Olympian Flame, MyPenIsSharperThanYourSword, Nightmare Before Halloween, Phunke, SlothKeeper, Sorry-NotValid, Stella Stellina, bobweirdy, fRANkiEGirL61, freeyourminddreamer, karmabear2050, kelsey4794, ocean101, pandaskis, sHaTtErEd-DiAmOnD-hEaRtS, and wisegirl101. **Thank you kindly!**

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**Sightless by Neko Kuroban and Sister Grimm Erin**

**Part One:**

**Walk This World**

**Chapter IV:**

**But That Was In Another Country**

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* * *

_

_The past is another country. They do things differently there. _

* * *

fMore than an hour had passed, and Artemis still had not returned.

Light slumber had overtaken Abigail. In the quiet stillness, her shallow breathing seemed exceptionally loud. Her eyes did not move behind her closed lids as they did when dreaming; she must have been unable to achieve anything approaching a deeper state of sleep.

If she had been mortal, death would have claimed her hours ago. The immortal blood that coursed through her veins was the only thing keeping her alive—and the only thing prolonging her agony. Her body was spent and beaten, but it would continue to try to fight the poison even after the battle was lost.

Thalia turned away.

She strode through the tent without a single sound, extinguishing candles and incense. The brazier still emitted a feeble glow and faint warmth. She let it be. From the narrow bed that was usually Mary's, she grabbed one thin pillow and the vibrant patchwork quilt, light enough to be comfortable in the summer warmth. She laid down on the floor beside Abigail's cot, but she did not dare make herself comfortable for fear of falling asleep.

It was chiefly due to her concern for Abigail, but a part of it, one she would not acknowledge to herself, was her desire to stave off the relentless nightmares that assaulted her. They had always been a constant presence in her life—more than anything or anyone else had ever been.

From an early age, Thalia had trained herself not to let them affect her daily routine, but once the night terrors she suffered from had often been intense enough to leave her sleepless and out of sorts for days. There was no method to predict them. Often they came clustered. Sometimes a week-long spell of dreamless sleep would be shattered by but a single spy.

This summer, she had suffered from them nightly, and there seemed to be no reprieve in sight. At least once a night—twice or three times, more commonly—she would jolt awake, anxious and striving for something just beyond her grasp. She would wake instantly, breathing raw and perspiration lining her brow, heart pounding and sheets tangled around her seemingly leaden limbs. More than the physical feelings, however, she loathed the feelings of fear and vulnerability the sudden fits of distress aroused within her.

Hands laced behind her head, Thalia lay on her back and stared up at nothing. Like the walls, the ceiling of the large tent was constructed of pale silk that seemed to shimmer from gray to blue and back.

Beside her, Abigail's light breathing ceased, only to be replaced by a quicker, sharper rhythm. She heard no indication of a body stirring or the whimpering groan that usually accompanied someone waking, but Thalia was not taken by surprise when the question rose out of the darkness.

"Have I ever told you about my people?"

"No," she answered, her eyes locked on the gauzy fabric overhead. "You haven't."

"It is not common knowledge," the other girl admitted. "As far as I know, only Artemis and Mary know all of it. I would like to tell you...if I might."

"Go ahead." Under Thalia's tongue, the instruction twisted into a challenge.

"You won't tell anyone?"

She dismissed the other girl's concerns with a half-hearted flick of her wrist. "Who would I tell? And why would I tell them?"

And there it was: that dry, rasping laughter that served only to discomfort rather than to reassure. "You have a point." Abigail paused as if it was a struggle for her to gather her thoughts. "I do not know where to begin."

At long last, Thalia turned. She sat up and arranged herself so that she was sitting cross-legged, the thin coverlet draped over her narrow shoulders. She gazed at Abigail with somber eyes.

"Which of your parents was immortal?" The question was something Thalia had before wondered but never dared ask. It was not a concrete rule, but _de facto_ practice among the Hunters (there were very few of the former but the limits posed by the latter were countless) dictated that information about one's past needed to be freely given, provided without being asked for. "Your mother or your father?"

"My mother." Abigail's answer came promptly—and not without a touch of pride. _The pride of an orphan_, Thalia thought wryly. "It was a dryad who bore me."

"That explains your eyes," she mused aloud. "They say that eyes like yours—with the colored rings around the pupil like that—almost only ever come from having a nymph for a mother." She wrapped the quilt tighter around herself. "Have you ever met her?"

"Never," Abigail answered after a moment of silence. "I am the issue of her flesh and yet I have never so much as seen her. I once confronted the man who lay with her, the father of my birth. He was only able to tell me that she was a nature spirit." Something that might have been a smile turned up her lips. "He told me that she was magnificent.

"I do not know the actual day or even the month of my birth, but the wind brought me to my father when I was still an infant too young to sit up. That was the winter after the Chickamauga Wars ended. The peace treaty was signed in the autumn of 1794. It has been nearly two hundred and fifteen years since then. I wonder..."

Thalia latched onto the hitch in her voice. As if by instinct, she identified and understood the vulnerability there. She wanted to quell any doubts that might have lingered just on the edges of Abigail's perception. When someone was dying, what could be done but to make them comfortable—emotionally as well as physically?

"I'm sure she'd be proud of you."

And who was to say it was a lie?

"I hope so," Abigail confided in a tentative whisper, suddenly naught but a girl of twelve or thirteen. "I want to share this with you—I really do—but it is...hard for me."

"I can understand that." Thalia laid back down. She curled on her side, turning away from her companion. She pressed her cheek against Mary's lilac-scented pillowcase; the crocheted pattern, dimmed and yellowed with age, was coarse yet calming against her skin. Her black hair spilled over the antique lace. "It would be difficult for me, too." Because it seemed necessary, she added, "You can tell me anything, you know."

"I know."

A silence fell, pregnant with a hundred potential meanings and possibilities, but, at last, Abigail spoke.

"In my tribe, we were—we _are_—very proud. Proud to live; prouder still to die. Names are seen as highly sacred...very much like the people of your own father believe.

"My father was the only son of the high chief. He was young. Today, he would still be considered a boy, but then he was a man. He had taken a bride, and she had already borne him two children, one boy and one girl. You can imagine the scandal admitting what he had done would have caused in normal circumstances, but he boasted to all the men that bedding a nature spirit had been what made him a hero in the wars. He never thought there would be a cost.

"When the wind brought me to him, he was tempted to leave me to the elements. It would have been merciful, and he would have remained blameless. Instead, he found he could not. He gave me the name of Pretty Flower. _Lomasi_. A life and a name...those were the only two things he ever gave me."

"Lomasi," Thalia repeated, tasting the three syllables upon her tongue. "Is that what you consider your true name?"

"Be patient."

"There's something I'm terrible at."

"Patience? I never would have imagined."

Thalia was not facing Abigail, but she did not have to look at her to hear the smile in her voice.

"Rather than face the consequences, my father and grandfather insisted that I was an orphan from another tribe, one with which ours had become allies. He said that my parents had died in the war and that he had found me in the forest. The adults all pretended to believe it. That was easier than facing the truth, especially when they valued loyalty and courage above all else."

Under the tongue of a gifted storyteller, a tale such as this became a form of medicine, a balm for the sin-sick, world-weary soul. Not only did stories possess an inherent power, they demanded nothing of the audience. One was not required to act, to say, or to become anything.

One needed only to listen.

"He gave me to a woman to raise. She was very old and without child or husband. In a sweat lodge, her spirit guide told her that I was to be called Butterfly—_Aponi_—and so that is what she called me...when she was not calling me _girl_ or _brat_. She tried to teach me her craft of medicines and prayer, but she died when I was very young. I think I was still six, but it was the summer of my seventh year."

"And after she died?"

Behind her, she heard the fabric of the bed sheets rustle as Abigail shifted position. "I was sent to live with a man. He was our storyteller, but he was something of a hermit. Very few people ever saw him leave his home for anything but holy days or on nights when the men drank and demanded entertainment. _A lone wolf_, people joked, but everyone thought he was nothing but a bearded grump. I was a little afraid of him at first, but he was always kind to me."

"Before or after?"

"Both. He had eyes like I did, and he once told me that he knew what it was to be called a bastard. He had once been a great warrior, but, by the time I knew him, he wore his hair short and walked with a limp. He was called Lean Bear—_Avocano_—by the adults who remembered his glory, but the children called him _Wahanasatta_, He Who Walks With His Toes Turned Outward."

"Kids suck," Thalia noted, her voice deadpan, and she heard Abigail laugh weakly behind her. "What did you call him?"

"Papa."

Feeling as if a knife had just been plunged into her breast, Thalia squeezed her eyes shut. "I see." She had not expected to receive such a blunt, straightforward response to her question—and she never would have anticipated herself having such a visceral reaction to those two deceptively simple syllables.

"Not at first, of course," Abigail went on. Another girl might have sounded nostalgic or even plaintive and self-conscious, but her voice, though melodic, was not shaded by emotion. "I called him Hotato when I first began to live with him. It is short, but it means quite a lot—Warrior Spirit Who Sings. A thousand stories lived in his head. He was delicate but rough, crude but elegant. He was once a hero, but he found himself outcast after he was hurt. Many thought he should have died and spared himself the shame. He taught me everything he knew: how to tell a story, how to fight, how to string a bow, how to play the flute, how to tan leather. He also gave me the name I consider mine: Ahyoka."

Thalia shifted to face her when she did not elaborate. "What does it mean?"

The other girl's smile lit her exhausted features from within. "She Who Brings Happiness."

"He died when you still needed him, didn't he?" Thalia's question, impulsive and not at all premeditated, came out no louder than a whisper. Why did her throat suddenly feel as if it had been stripped dry? "You loved him, you needed him, and he _died_."

"He died trying to protect me," Abigail replied. "I have lived knowing that for the past two hundred years."

"Was it in vain?"

Thalia suspected that she knew the answer already, but she needed to ask. Beneath the tapestry woven of Abigail's story, she had discovered another fabric, this crafted of memory, one that brought both pain and joy. In her mind's eye rose not the image of a warrior or the child who brought him delight, but an angelic little girl with golden ringlets and a beautiful, broken boy with ancient eyes. Her own sacrifice had afforded them safety but ensured neither their happiness nor their security.

"It was."

Thalia released a breath she had not realized she had been holding. "Oh."

"My people who survived the battle were separated. The adults were forced to a reservation, and the children were taken. I do not know what became of the others.

"I was sent to a school with another girl. She was my birth father's daughter—my half-sister, I suppose you'd say now—but there was no love lost between us. She had known that I was a bastard but not whose, and she had always been cruel to me. Suddenly we were forced to be all one another had of home.

"They took away everything we ever had: our clothes, our language, our families, our gods, our names. Among our people, she was Halona because of her luck and good fortune, but she became Rachel. I became Abigail."

"If that was the name they gave you, why do you still use it?" Thalia asked.

"Names are a very powerful thing. Sometimes it is better to keep the one that belongs to your heart private. Later, I learned that Abigail means _father's love_. I kept it out of respect for Papa's sacrifice."

When she grew quiet, Thalia assumed she was lost in memory.

"Changing our names was the greatest insult to me, but to Halona it was small compared to what happened next: They cut our hair. Among my people, that is a punishment reserved for those who were defeated in battle and returned home in shame. When they cut our hair, I refused to let them see me cry, but Halona sobbed and sobbed.

"She became very sick. Life was different then; a cold could easily kill. I stayed with her until the day she died. Very much as _you_ are doing for me now, Thalia," Abigail added. "They buried her under their rites, not ours. I ran away that very night. That was when I met our lady. Artemis seemed to be a girl just as I was, but I could see eternity in her eyes. She made me think of what my birth father had said about my mother: she was magnificent."

Abigail ran the pad of her thumb over the smooth back of Thalia's hand, and the girl felt a hot pricking sensation at the base of her neck. A cold chill raced along her spine. In spite of herself, she shivered.

"Your turn."

The unexpected announcement ended the enchantment. "_My_ turn?"

"Tell me your story."

Thalia freed her hand with a sharp jerk. "There's nothing to tell."

Abigail regarded her with a strange, steady look. "Liar."

"I never lie," Thalia insisted. "I just have no idea what there is that I can possibly tell you."

"You began by asking about my mother. You could tell me about yours."

"Don't ask me to do that," she snapped without thinking.

"Are you really saying no to me now? I'm dying."

The bluntness—and irreverence—of the proclamation would have made a lesser girl recoil in shock. Thalia merely frowned, her slender black eyebrows drawing together almost imperceptibly. "Are you trying to use that as a way to manipulate me into doing something I don't want to do? _Really_?"

Abigail considered this. "Essentially." Her response was laced with saccharin sweetness, equal parts genuine and sarcastic.

If Abigail could be blasé, so could she. "Charming," Thalia noted with her usual brand of dry sarcasm, but there was nothing resembling malice in her voice.

She raked her gaze along Abigail's prone form. Framed by damp, matted hair, her face was flushed, and the faint light—what little there was—from the brazier glistened off of her sweat-slicked skin.

_Dying slowly must be hell_, she reflected. It had been far from painless for her, but at least her own misery had been mercifully fleeting. _She's getting near the end. She's lucky._ "Are you afraid?"

"Of death?"

Thalia nodded.

"No. I have had more than two centuries to get used to the idea that one day I will become one with everything. That's nearly three times as long as mortals today have. If ever I was afraid of dying, I was afraid of dying alone. Because of you, I will not." Abigail turned her head to look at her. "And you? Do you fear death?"

Thalia had expected this. "No."

"Liar." This time, the chastisement was accompanied by a faint, rasping laugh and a wet-sounding cough.

"I never lie," Thalia maintained. "_Ever_," she added for emphasis. "Dying isn't something I'm afraid of. I mean, I've already died once. I feel like I understand the concept of eternity better than most people. The idea doesn't scare me."

"Dead and resurrected...and the girl claims to have no story to tell."

Thalia resisted the urge to sigh as she reached for her bag. The black messenger bag was simple, festooned with a veritable wealth of old patches and pins, but she had carried it for years. Practical supplies were kept in the main compartment, but the narrow second pocket served as a repository for her most private possessions.

As she rifled through its myriad contents, her fingertips brushed against soft material, cool and smooth. She typically refrained from indulging in memory in favor of focusing solely on the present, but she knew instantly what it was. She withdrew the item without ceremony and placed it in Abigail's lap, where it formed a pool of petal-pink silk.

"This was hers."

From the corner of her eye, Thalia observed Abigail sit up—not without a great deal of effort—and run her hand over the narrow scarf. Somber she may have often been, but, even weak and lethargic, Abigail was still a girl young enough to be prone to whimsy. With a flourish that was not as grand as it might have otherwise been, she looped the length of silk twice around her neck to let both ends fall down her back in a cascade of soft brocade.

Mary's burnished looking glass in the far corner must have provided a slice of her reflection, because Abigail preened for just a moment before unwrapping it to tie it in a different fashion.

_She really is just a kid_, Thalia realized faintly.

"Did she wear perfume?" Abigail wanted to know. "It's so familiar—like something I should know, but I can't recognize it."

"I'm not sure. Probably something floral with an insipid one-word name. _Curious_ or _Fantasy_ or _Imagine_. Something along those lines."

Thalia returned her attention to hunting down what she sought. Why had she never bothered to discard these reminders of things that she wanted to forget? She resolved that she would purge herself of them when she had a moment to herself—if she ever found one. That, of course, assumed that they had a future at all.

_If the world doesn't end in a week, I'll have a bonfire_, she thought for her own amusement. _Throw myself a pity party. Balloon animals optional. Get some symbolic closure._

At last, she found what she was looking for: a photograph the size of her palm. The colors were still vivid and the texture no less glossy than when it had been developed, but the one corner was beginning to curl at the edges from lack of proper care.

She handed it to Abigail, face down. "Here." The single word sounded more terse than she had intended. "Memories neither water-colored nor misty. This was my mother."

As Abigail examined the photograph, an expression Thalia could not quite place crossed her face. "She is very beautiful."

"Yeah. She was." Even to her own ears, Thalia's voice was without passion—as if she was stating an indisputable fact she was loath to admit. She was. "Physically, at least. This picture was taken a month or so after I was born, going by the date on the back. She...was killed a few years ago."

_Died_, she had almost said. However, she had read the ruling printed on the death certificate, sharp-edged type that tried to lend sense to what did not seem possible, and she had seen for herself the harsh, unforgiving photographs of the aftermath. _Died_ did not fit what had happened.

Again, Abigail looked to the picture in her hand. Thalia believed she could see the other girl reassessing it. "How old is she here? Seventeen?"

As if to delay the inevitable, Thalia reached out to unwind the scarf from around Abigail. She shaped a loop and laced it around the other Hunter's neck, tucking in the loose ends to create a tidy slip knot. Her movements were brisk and efficient with no extraneous motions.

"She had just turned seventeen there," the raven-haired girl answered as she pulled away. "She was sixteen when she got pregnant." Disdain crept into her tone and colored the statement. "Twenty-nine when she died."

"Sometimes there is no choice." Abigail's shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. "Once, it was perfectly normal for a woman to have her first child at sixteen. It was common when I was young."

"That is the best defense of teenage pregnancy that I've ever heard," Thalia said, caustic with sarcasm. "It was normal once, and half of them died while doing it because their bodies weren't developed enough to have children. What does that tell you?"

"That we had very good mid-wives," Abigail quipped, sticking out the pointed tip of her pink tongue. "Was she a dancer? She has that...carriage."

"No." Abigail looked faintly disappointed, and somehow Thalia found herself revealing more than she intended. "She _was_ an actress, though. And a model."

"Really?" Abigail half-smiled. "Was she anything like you?"

Thalia almost laughed at the question—and, under different circumstances, she might have. _Then again, under different circumstances, the subject wouldn't have come up at all._ "Hardly."

It was rare that Thalia thought of her mother, a scattered, self-involved woman as miserable as she was beautiful.

She looked down. The photograph Abigail had returned to her showed a waif-like teenage girl glancing at the camera over one shoulder. The wind flung out her hair—long, loose waves the color of wheat—dramatically behind her and teased the hem of her fluttering sundress. One manicured hand was raised to secure a wayward curl behind her ear, and a faint smile played at the corners of her mouth as if she was recalling something that had amused her. Her eyes, however, were troubled. The colors captured were vibrant and rich: alabaster skin and flaxen hair and emerald eyes and the clear sky behind her so blue, blue, blue.

On the surface, her mother had come across as charming and alluring, and people _reacted_ to her. Men's eyes followed her from the moment she entered a room, and women were won over by what they perceived as effervescence. Even boys who had just begun adolescence had a tendency to stare as if they wished she would drop something.

_Endearing_ was the term used for her mother's childish flightiness and theatrical behavior. Traits that should have been noticed as signs of a larger, underlying problem—silvered laughter ringing false, spending money as if it was about to fall out of fashion, drinking alcohol like water—were condoned and dismissed or even encouraged.

The effulgent facade well concealed the truth: her mother fell apart behind closed doors. She seemed to exist only at extremes—highs as well as lows—and she could go from bliss to despair with little, if anything, to herald the change. Both positive and negative emotions were flamboyantly expressed. She had little tolerance for stress, frustration, or simple criticism. She possessed an array of irrational fears and resentments as well as a driving need to be the center of attention.

As Thalia saw it, her career had been nothing more than an avenue through which she gained narcissistic satisfaction from being admired. Even in her personal affairs, she was better at longing than loving. Men sought her attention, but her relationships were kept shallow and superficial. She wore the guise of aloof disinterest, but the truth was that she was dependent on others to provide the attention she craved.

She had once labored over dream-like watercolors and penned exquisite poetry, tightly chained sonnets about dark waters and white flowers and villanelles about the world brought to its knees. One night, she accused Thalia of being the reason she no longer wrote or painted and immediately dissolved into tears, the kind of aching, breathless sobs Thalia had never heard before or since.

Thalia had left without a further word.

In hindsight, she regretted this, but, even now, she knew not what else she could have done.

Her mother had held herself in contempt, some part of Thalia understood in hindsight. Her depression had not merely been anger turned inward; it had been a sense of despair so pervasive it had tainted every aspect of her life.

Alcohol served as her mother's crutch. Any remarks about it were deflected. She was not above manipulating others to protect her continued drinking. To hear her tell the tale, her dependence and her failures of responsibility were always, always, _always_ someone else's fault.

And yet...that was not all there was. Thalia had heard the stories and seen the evidence. Her mother had once been a vivacious girl, brimming with life and love. Traces had remained, and, when Thalia had thought to look for them, she had stumbled quite unexpectedly across the fragmented shards.

She had been a contradiction, complex and elaborate, and Thalia wished that her own feelings about the woman could at least be simple. Unfortunately, her life was never that simple. They formed layer upon layer of hurt and shame and bitterness and anger and need. She longed for the day to come when she could uncover old wounds bit by bit, make up her mind about how she felt about the woman's memory, and _finally_ wash her hands of all of this.

_That bonfire idea might be worth something after all._

"And?"

Abigail's voice broke her reverie. "Mm?"

"You were saying...?"

"Right. I..." She faltered, something that was rare for her, but only momentarily. How could she possibly tell Abigail any of this? "You know what? Words fail."

"I see," Abigail said, and Thalia knew that on some level she did understand—but not nearly as well as she believed she did. Perhaps that was precisely the problem. "Can you do me a favor and open that box?"

Surprised by the unexpected request, Thalia followed her gaze to the small wooden chest sitting at the foot of the bed. It was constructed of red-brown veneer, outfitted with iron trappings, but the polished cherry wood looked to be nothing more than a thin overlay that covered a cheaper material. The lock was ornate and larger than necessary, made to instill false confidence in its owner rather than to testify to the quality of its construction.

"There's a catch, isn't there? There always is," she added, more to herself than to Abigail.

"No key."

Thalia shrugged. "That? Not a problem."

She withdrew a flimsy paper envelope from her bag. Wrinkled and unsealed, there were no markings on the outside beyond a single scratch of black ink that might have shaped either a nine or a four. Contained inside were several thin, short lengths of metal and one of soft wood. She chose a black wire, a little thicker and sturdier than the others; this one was bent to have a series of notches and grooves that imitated a key's ridged carvings.

She slid it into the keyhole and turned it with caution, feeling the structure of the lock's pins and tumblers beneath her fingertips. Her suspicion about it being cheaply made proved correct. Her hands were neither as steady nor as gentle as they ought to have been—in this, she supposed, the student had never surpassed the teacher—but it did not matter.

The lock sprang open with a nearly inaudible _click_.

"Good party trick, huh?"

Abigail looked unimpressed. "You didn't _break_ it, did you?" She asked, her voice rising an octave with concern.

"Of course not." Thalia replaced the wire into the envelope. "Picking a lock won't damage it. That's the point. If you turn too far or something, it just stays locked."

She threw open the lid to reveal the interior of the chest, empty save for a small pouch crafted of sun-bleached animal hide that sat in the corner. The stitched design was unskilled, most likely the work of a child. It was nearly impossible to determine what, if anything, the embroidery had been intended to be.

"What's this?"

"Here."

Abigail held her hands out for it, and Thalia placed the purse in her cupped palms. With shaking fingers, the bronze-skinned girl untied the bow that held the beaded strings closed and shook out the item contained inside: a small, winged figure dangling from a rawhide cord. The talisman was carved from turquoise and flanked on either side by clay beads in varying shades blue, cyan darkening to navy, each bauble separated by a hard leather knot.

"Take this."

Looking over the small pendant, Thalia was surprised at the intricacy of the details the craftsman had managed to capture in the blue-green stone. The charm depicted an eagle in full flight, wings outstretched to full span and head bowed. Its eyes, painted with gold leaf, were narrowed with what might have been determination. It was no larger than an inch or so at its widest point, but every feather was represented individually. The eagle had minute talons that had been filed to individual points, as had its beak.

"My papa gave this amulet to me," Abigail said. "It was a spoil of war from one of his victories. I want you to have it."

Thalia hated the discomfort of receiving presents at the _best_ of times. To take something so personal at a moment such as this felt like an unspeakable transgression. "I can't possibly accept—"

"I want you to have it," Abigail repeated, her expression rapt. "It will keep you safe."

Her hand tightened around it without thinking. "But it's _yours_."

"You should take it!" A high voice suggested from the doorway, the exclamation a rapid-fire burst. Mary approached with dainty, mincing footsteps. Her movements seemed rigid highly controlled; Thalia suspected she was trying to hide her restless, anxious energy. "She really has wanted to give it to since she met you," Mary explained earnestly.

Abigail patted the empty space beside her. "Come lay with me."

Mary complied, and banter followed as they arranged themselves ("You're cold." "No, you're warm.") on the narrow bed—just barely big enough for two, even a pair as small as they were. If Abigail had not sounded so weary, if Mary's voice had not been wet and tumultuous with unshed tears, if she herself did not have a thousand concerns of war and peace and more personal conflicts hanging over her head like the sword of Damocles, it would have been easy for Thalia to imagine that tonight was any other night.

Hearing someone approach, she looked up at the doorway in time to see Phoebe enter. The tall girl had the grace to look sheepish, and her shoulders were taut as if she had braced herself for some kind of rebuke.

_Entirely her doing_, she mouthed, indicating Mary with a tilt of her head.

Thalia did not smile, but she winked one bright blue eye. She noticed Phoebe's posture relax, but only slightly.

"Phoebe!" Abigail was either oblivious to the tension in the air or she was beyond the point of caring. The truth probably laid somewhere in between. "Make Thalia take her gift."

"What..." She trailed off as she noticed the necklace in Thalia's hand. For the first time in what seemed to be days, Phoebe smiled at the sight of the pendant. The gesture was only minute and not long-lived, but it softened her usually forbidding features. "Let me help you put it on?" She offered.

"Fine," Thalia conceded as she got to her feet. "I know when I'm outnumbered."

"No," Phoebe chided. "You _don't_."

Thalia felt the beginning of a smirk tug at the corners of her lips. It was the closest she came to an expression of an amusement these days. She had never been generous with her smile or her laughter, but she could not remember the last time she had let herself—or had any reason to—express any kind of mirth. "Give me time. Maybe I'll learn."

"No," Phoebe said with a faint sigh. "You won't."

Thalia presented her back to her second-in-command, and, using one hand, she gathered her hair to expose her slender neck. A moment later, she felt the tickle of Phoebe's long fingers, calloused from so many battles, brushing over her bared skin—a sensation that was not altogether unpleasant—and then her hands fell away without warning.

"_Sôteira_!" She heard Phoebe exclaim behind her. It was a formal title, Thalia knew, and Phoebe always infused it with respect, but, when she used it to address Artemis, it somehow adopted the fondness another girl might reserve for a pet name.

Abigail merely smiled.

Beside her, Mary tried to mimic it, but the expression was forced and displayed none of the serenity her best friend—_the sister of her soul_, as Abigail had phrased it—had demonstrated.

Letting her hair fall, Thalia stuck the pendant in the pocket of her jeans and turned around in time to see Phoebe rise from her graceful bow.

For a goddess, her sister did not present herself as intimidating. She stood a scant inch or so shorter than Thalia herself, who was petite, and they shared a similar deceptively delicate build as well as fey-like features. Artemis was clad in loose, flowing garments of white and gold, but they were unmistakably modern—dainty golden sandals, ivory pants, and a gold corset-style bodice over a long-sleeved white shirt. The bell-shaped sleeves fell past her thin wrists, and her strawberry-blonde hair was arranged in loose braids, lending her a youthful, innocent air.

She surveyed the tableau with a cocked eyebrow. "Am I interrupting something?"

"Quick, guys. Hide the contraband," Thalia drawled. "We can't get away with it anymore."

"Sarcasm is the last refuge of the weak," Phoebe informed Thalia in a brusque undertone. Without sparing time for the lieutenant to retort, she turned to Artemis. "We were just leaving, my lady," she hastened to reassure her goddess, low and deferential. She always seemed to fold in on herself whenever Artemis was present, suddenly becoming meek and submissive, but there was a heavy note of command in her voice when she added, "Come, Mary."

"Of course," Mary agreed instantly. For all of them, it was reflex to comply with whoever held authority. It must have been difficult for her to overcome that instinct enough to hesitate. "But—I—um..."

"Give her a moment to say goodbye," Artemis broke in.

Already half-way to the exit, Phoebe missed a step. She paused, an embarrassed blush spreading across the bridge of her nose and bringing heat to her cheeks. She murmured her agreement and sketched a rough half-bow, a graceful arch of her back, then continued on her way.

Thalia felt a rush of gratitude, but it was not enough to appease the prick of annoyance she felt at her sister's cavalier attitude. She closed the space between herself and Artemis and folded her arms over her breasts, unconsciously widening her stance.

"You're late." She made no attempt to hide the disapproval in her words. She was vaguely aware that Mary looked stunned, but Thalia thought the Hunters should have been used to her by now. Out of their twelve, she was the only one who ever tried to take Artemis to task. "What the hell could possibly have been so important?"

"I'll tell you later," Artemis promised.

Thalia watched as Artemis moved to kneel beside Abigail and Mary, her head bowed. Her lovely, delicate face was schooled into serenity in an attempt at comfort, but her hands betrayed her as she gestured to illustrate some point. Her movements were just a little _too_ affected.

Thalia wrapped her arms tighter around herself as Abigail leaned forward to whisper something into the goddess's ear. It was easy to forget in times of duress that enhanced senses meant there was no such thing as privacy within such close quarters. Thalia made out the hushed request as easily as if it had been at conversation level, and a part of her wished she had not.

She felt sick.

Artemis nodded once, a sharp, regal gesture, and straightened. "Of course." A ball of white energy appeared in her hand. With a flash, it lengthened and took shape, morphing into a short sword with an elaborate hilt and crescent-shaped cross guard. The wicked blade tapered to a sharp point. She addressed the other two without once taking her eyes off of Abigail. "Could you leave us?" Regardless of how she phrased it, it was unmistakably an order. "Please," she added as if as an afterthought.

After placing a final kiss on Abigail's cheek, Mary took her leave. The fabric curtain fluttered closed in her wake.

Artemis's piercing silver-blue gaze flickered to Thalia.

"Yes," she murmured after a moment and lowered her bright eyes—but not before Thalia noticed the emotion there. Sorrow? Yes. Regret? Perhaps. But no shame.

No shame at all.

"You, too."

* * *

**Authors'**** Note (Sister Grimm and Neko Kuroban): **_Please take the time to review! Feedback always, always goes appreciated — and is always replied to. _


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